From Brad Glosserman
It’s hard to tell if Donald Trump’s recent comments about his readiness to disregard treaty obligations if US allies didn’t live up to their promises to increase defense spending were more shocking to American allies and partners or US analysts and strategists.
Stunning as his remarks were, the rest of the world appears to have priced in the former president’s disdain not only for allies but the entire global order his predecessors created. Even if Trump doesn’t win the November election, that thinking and approach will remain a constant concern of US allies – and adversaries. The genie is not going back into the bottle.
Trump’s readiness to tear up treaties and ignore US defense commitments was a feature, not a bug, of his presidency. For him, all relationships are transactional. (Some are status affirming – he is ready to like people who like him – but that is just another form of exchange.) He complained that the US – more specifically, his predecessors – had been hoodwinked by allies who refused to honor a 2006 pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defense and then forced to fill the gap. He aimed to highlight the gullibility of previous presidents and underscore how Trump would be a much better deal maker. Trump reiterated his criticism last week, telling a campaign rally that at a 2018 meeting he informed European allies that his administration would not protect them if they were attacked by Russia and hadn’t hit the 2% mark. He then went further and said that he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” if allies didn’t keep their promise.
Typically, Trump exaggerated. The Washington Post noted that no one could recall him ever saying such a thing to another leader, and presidential advisers from that time say that Trump embellished his comments in the re-telling. He doubled down over the weekend, posting on Truth Social, his social media platform, that he wanted to upend another foundational premise of US foreign assistance. Rather than providing unconditional aid, a mainstay of US foreign policy, his administration would “never give money anymore without the hope of a payback, or without ‘strings’ attached.” If any recipient “ever turns against us, or strikes it rich sometime in the future,” he added, any loans would have to be immediately repaid.
No one in Asia can be surprised by this. Leaving for the 2019 Osaka Group of 20 summit, Trump told a television interviewer that “We have a treaty with Japan. If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. We will go in and we will protect them and we will fight with our lives and with our treasure. We will fight at all costs, right? But if we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us at all. They can watch it on a Sony television, the attack.”
After leaving office in 2021, he warned South Korea that if he reclaimed the presidency, Seoul would have to pay more money to maintain a US troop presence in country. Condemnations of Trump’s recent remarks were quick and cutting. The Biden administration called them “appalling and unhinged.” The Washington Post cited a German member of the European Parliament who said Trump had “no values, no international expertise, a pure transactional mind-set.” An informal survey of Asian opinion indicates that while regional experts are worried, Trump isn’t the problem. Asian observers and strategists who follow the US – and they do so very closely, reading not just headlines but digging deep into details – recognize that the former president leads a movement. They know that even if Trump doesn’t win in November, his ideas will persist.
When I asked a Japanese diplomat shortly after the last US presidential vote if he was relieved that Joe Biden won, he shook his head, noting that Trump might have lost but Trumpism would live on. Shahriman Lockman, a director at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, a think tank with close ties to the government, agreed in an email, explaining that “if America can elect Trump in 2016 and come close to re-electing him again, what’s to say that Trump is an aberration?” He offered the grim prediction that “Trump-like figures – transactional, capricious and abhorrent – may well be a recurrent occupant of the White House for decades to come.” Proof is in the paralysis that grips the US Congress. While some resistance is partisan politics – a readiness to follow Trump’s lead and an instinctive refusal to provide any “wins” for Biden in an election year – there is also a belief among many, if not most, Republicans – who make common cause with a much smaller, but no less fervent group of Democrats – that disengagement, perhaps even isolation, is best for the country. The inability to do anything – or an actual desire to stand down – is doing great damage to US credibility. Some, like Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi of the University of Tokyo’s Center for Advanced Research and Technology and an adjunct fellow at the Pacific Forum, worry that political games are a “distraction” for policy makers in Washington. Others, such as Gibum Kim, an analyst at the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis (KIDA), a think tank affiliated with Korea’s Ministry of Defense, consider it “dysfunction.” All fear that it will become the new norm.
Tom Corben, a research fellow at the United States Studies Centre in Sydney, Australia, believes it already has. “US allies are increasingly used to Congressional dysfunction and distraction,” with the strategic community in Australia largely unconcerned as the Department of Defense operates under continuing resolutions, for example. The implications of this sad state of affairs are wide ranging. It undermines “US credibility and standing abroad to allies and partners,” charged Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of Political Science at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, a point made by every one of my respondents. Moreover, it undercuts US capabilities and has, Corben noted in an email, “real implementation costs for US strategy in Asia.” He explained that “if the intent of US regional strategy is to deter, rather than punishing, Chinese adventurism or miscalculation, then we can’t afford these perpetual delays to resourcing – deterrence won’t work if the resources aren’t in place before things escalate.”
Allies are hedging, which can be a good thing. Governments are increasing defense spending and diversifying security relationships. They’re strengthening ties with old partners and forging new ones with others. Trilateral and multilateralism are another result. These efforts signal a seriousness that should reinforce alliances with the US Those countries know that for all the uncertainty and confusion, alliance with the US is the best security option. Other forms of hedging are not so good. In a few, rare cases, allied governments might be tempted to bandwagon with former adversaries. Equally worrisome are some forms of self-help. Chun In-bum, former head of South Korean special forces, warned that policies that raise questions about US security commitments to Korea will increase support for his country to go nuclear. While reluctance to take that fateful step is much higher in Japan, pressure to do so will mount if US security guarantees are questioned and South Korea crosses the nuclear threshold.
For all the encouragement to do more for themselves, KIDA’s Kim cautioned that this could still be a problem for Washington. “Allies and partners seeking more strategic and/or tactical room to maneuver and not necessarily aligning with the US on certain matters would surely be very frustrating for the US” Trump seems to think that the US will retain its power and authority even as allies assume new responsibilities. That is unlikely. Old models of leadership and multilateral management must adjust to this new world. “The whole world is watching,” said Kim, adding that “I only hope that US leaders would care as much about US leadership in global affairs as we do in allied and partner countries.” –FP
